The ghost of Michael Flynn still haunts the White House. The revelation that the since-ousted national security adviser had misled Vice President Mike Pence about pre-inauguration discussions with Russia’s ambassador to the United States already caused significant political damage to Donald Trump’s administration. And now, a new Flynn scandal raises even more questions about just how susceptible the White House may be to moneyed interests and foreign governments.

The drip-drip of suspicious news began on Thursday, when the Associated Press reported that, prior to the election, Flynn, a controversial former lieutenant general and one of Trump’s earliest supporters, had been paid $530,000 for his firm to lobby on behalf of Inovo BV, whose founder, Kamil Ekim Alptekin, has ties to the Turkish government. Flynn was not registered as a lobbyist at the time, a potential violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and belatedly filed as one last Tuesday. According to his filings submitted to the Department of Justice, Flynn’s work with the company, which included an op-ed published on Election Day calling for America to support Erdogan as an ally in the fight against ISIS, “could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey.”

In response, the Trump administration claimed that they had been blindsided by the revelations. But were they? On Friday, the AP further reported that the Trump transition team had known about Flynn’s work. Trump’s chief White House counsel had been aware of the fact, the AP reported, and believed it was a “personal matter that his own attorney would need to handle.”

“The lawyer was instructed [by the transition] that that wasn’t the role of the transition, and it was up to the personal lawyer to work with the subject-matter experts to determine what was appropriate,” said Sean Spicer during Friday’s press briefing, in response to contentious questioning about Flynn. “This was a personal matter; it’s a business matter. It’s not something that would be appropriate for a government entity to give someone guidance on when they should file as a private citizen.”

Spicer compared Flynn’s situation to that of a hypothetical, random citizen who called the Department of Education to ask a school-related question, and insisted that the White House and Trump had no idea: “General Flynn filed with the Department of Justice two days ago. How would anyone know that he was going to?”

The line the White House is trying to toe here: that the work Flynn—the incoming national security adviser—was doing on behalf of a group tied to a foreign government is simply a “personal” matter. (Never mind the fact that as Flynn was being paid handsomely by a group aligned with the Turkish government, he was also leading chants of “Lock her up” and accusing Hillary Clinton of engaging in pay-for-play politics with foreign governments that contributed to the Clinton Foundation.)

Also complicating the White House’s narrative: a letter furnished by Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. Cummings shared the letter he wrote to Pence on November 18, in which the congressman warns the then-incoming V.P. that Flynn had been hired by Alptekin and demanded that the transition team release documents on the matter.

“If the Vice President had heeded my warnings, it’s clear now he could have prevented the problems that occurred with” Flynn, Cummings wrote on Friday. “Republicans in Congress are doing a disservice to the White House and our national security interests by not conducting rigorous and serious oversight of the administration, especially to help catch these issues early and address them.”